Workplace confidentiality is not just refraining from spreading the latest gossip, keeping a secret a coworker has asked you to keep or protecting the confidences of your boss. Those are certainly important, but I'd like to focus on those confidences that are required by law -- the ones that protect the privacy of students, patients, consumers, clients and customers. These regulations are meant to strengthen the protections of Americans' right to privacy that is implied in the U.S. Constitution. It is crucial that these privacy laws that protect all of us be enforced in every workplace that is affected. And because these laws are complex employees should check with their respective company's legal and compliance sources for answers to specific questions and solutions to complicated issues.

For many of us, the shocks we have received are akin to the horror that Dr. Frankenstein felt about the creature he had created. We've watched with revulsion as our modern-day monster of incivility, bullying, intimidation and hatred has opened its eye and been unleashed upon our nation.

“Every election is determined by the people who show up.” ~ Larry J. Sabato, Political Scientist

While making calls recently for my Presidential candidate, after the third voter hung up on me I laughed, joked and commiserated with my fellow phone bank volunteers, some of whom had been experiencing the same responses. We had been making Get Out The Vote (GOTV) calls in advance of the Iowa caucus. Most of the voters we were calling were already on board with our candidate, but even among those loyal supporters there were some who were outraged at the number of calls they had been receiving. I was used to this type of response from my first political campaign back in 1968.

There never will be complete equality until women themselveshelp to make laws and elect lawmakers. ~ Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)

Although it took nearly three-quarters of a century, American women made good on Abigail Adams's threat in 1776 to her husband, John Adams, as he participated in the creation of the United States Constitution: "...we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.” Once underway, that rebellion -- begun at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 -- lasted another nearly three-quarters of a century, but it resulted in the Nineteenth Amendment, ratified in 1920, which guaranteed all women nationwide the right to vote. Prior to that, each state decided whether to grant women the right to vote, and, shockingly, some states actually revoked their right. But many states did grant women the right to vote, and it was in 1917 that a leader in the suffrage movement of one of those states, Jeannette Rankin of Montana, became the first woman elected to Congress.

There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers. ~ Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) The Three E's is taking a brief hiatus this week and will return next Tuesday to address this last topic in honor of Women's History Month. Until next time, Jeanne

“I would argue that right now we have rationed care throughout this country. There are literally millions of Americans who don’t have access to the same quality or quantity of healthcare as millions of others. I heard Dr. Koop say the other day that an uninsured person who enters a hospital with the same problem as an insured person is three times more likely to die than the insured person. And that’s a shocking statistic.”~ First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Testimony to Congresson the President’s Healthcare Reform Proposal,September 28, 1993

"If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it bethat human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all."~ First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton,Remarks to the United Nations 4th World Conference on Women, Beijing, ChinaSeptember 5, 1995

The echoes of women's voices throughout history -- or herstory, as some feminists would say with a smile -- include one that resonates today. That is the voice of Hillary Clinton, who has managed to wear more hats in service to her government and various communities than just about anyone in the nation's history -- woman or man. And now she is poised to become the first female Presidential nominee of a major political party. If she succeeds, it will only have taken 240 years for an American woman to accomplish this feat.